Professional Documents
Culture Documents
(1916)1
Printedin The
Netherlands
BOOK REVIEWS
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242
out explaming its significance. There also
stems to be some confusion between design
production capacity in relation to capital cost
and operating capacity in relation to Operating
cost in the discussion of breakeven level.
There follow some 80 pages of graphs and
tables showing total capital investment in
terms of plant capacity for a range of 60 processes. The costs tk roughout the book are
normalised to mid 1970 average U.S. values.
The plants included are mostly petrochemical
and aknost entirely liquid or liquid/gas handlmg
and no indication is given as to the source of
the information.
Th; terms used are not defined and there
is some confusion about what each means, for
instance, it is not clear whether process units
are the same as purchasec equipment or
whether total capital investment has the
same meaning throughout the book and is the
same as, for example total module cost. All
the terms need to be defined and consistent in
such a text and a numerical example of how to
use the cost data would be a very valuable
addition.
Graphs of operating costs for the 60 processes
are next included but are quoted in dollars per
unit and the unit is not defined. There is
also a brief discussion of plant overheads expenses including depreciation. Taxation is hardly mentioned.
8. Chemical process modules. This includes an
explanation of much of the data presented in
section A under modules! It provides data
for assembling plant item costs from the item
type, material of construction, and direct
labour factor to produce a module cost. Data
for various types of h*at exchangers, process
vessels, pumps, and several other types of
process unit, and details for most of the
ancillaries are included, such as painting, insulation, control panels and electrical installatlon.
C. Buildings and structures. These civil engineering costs are presented in the standard
way by type, floor area or structure volume